The U.S. Department of Homeland Security confirmed Wednesday night that an immigration agent shot and wounded a Venezuelan man in north Minneapolis after he fled a traffic stop.
The agency shared the information in a post on X about 8:51 p.m., saying that the agent feared for his life as he struggled with the man and two bystanders who reportedly tried to intervene. The man who was the government’s initial target suffered a non-life threatening gunshot wound to the leg. He and the federal agent are in the hospital, and the bystanders were arrested, according to DHS.
The shooting comes exactly a week after a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer fatally shot Renee Nicole Macklin Good in south Minneapolis.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and police chief Brian O’Hara are expected to speak about Wednesday’s shooting at a 10:15 p.m. news conference.
The incident began with a traffic stop about 6:50 p.m. The shooting occurred in the 600 block of 24th Avenue North. More than 100 demonstrators gathered at different locations nearby, facing off with federal agents who deployed tear gas at times.
Noah Schumacher, who lives nearby, responded to the scene about five minutes away from his home. Schumacher, 33, said news of a second shooting was devastating. He knew he had to show up.
“It’s important to be in the streets to confront these people who are invading our communities, who are terrorizing our communities,” he said.
Witness accounts
Clayton Kelly, who lives nearby, said he watched as agents in an SUV with police lights chased another vehicle northbound on 6th Street before the SUV slid up onto a frozen embankment. Kelly said he saw at least one person run out of the car and agents chased them on foot, then he heard multiple gunshots.
“They [the person from the vehicle being chased] went into a house, the duplex in the middle of the block… I heard two shots before the area was just being swarmed by ICE immediately,” he said.
Anusha Ramaswami lives nearby and stopped by the scene.
“I feel like these shootings are happening because Minneapolis and Minnesota are fighting back,” said Ramaswami, 29. “I feel like their [immigration agents’] desperation is showing. The more that people are resisting these abductions and attacks, the more desperate they’re getting. The more wild and blatantly illegal tactics they’re using on film, brazenly. It’s shocking.”
Minnesota State Patrol officers fanned out as immigration and border patrol agents departed the scene at Lyndale and 24th avenues north in north Minneapolis on Jan. 14, 2026, after a man was shot and wounded by an immigration officer. Credit: Nicolas Scibelli for Sahan Journal
Keisha Foster, who lives around the corner from where the shooting apparently took place, said she heard two gunshots and came outside. That was when law enforcement, as well observers and protesters, began to trickle onto her block.
“We shouldn’t have to come out here, especially when we got children, families that we love and need to attend to,” Foster said. “Shouldn’t nobody have to go through this sadness.”
Miriam Lema, 19, lives a few blocks away from where the shooting happened. Neighbors in a WhatsApp group saw the shooting and ran to the scene.
With tears in her eyes, Lema said she wanted to see what happened and yell at ICE officers because they’ve been terrorizing her neighborhood.
As a crowd of neighbors and protesters swelled, an armored vehicle appeared on 23rd Street North and Lyndale Avenue, but protesters blocked it from getting through to 25th Street.
A protester broke the back windshield and taillight of an ICE vehicle that was departing. Federal agents set off flashbangs, smoke bombs and shot pepperballs and tear gas to try to push people back.
Jaylani Hussein, executive director of the Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), is on site and told Sahan Journal that he saw several federal officers and agents from the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) on site on the scene around 9:20 p.m.
The BCA investigates officer-involved shootings in Minnesota, but was pushed out of the Good investigation, which is being conducted by the FBI. State officials are launching an independent investigation into Good’s killing, but will not have access to evidence collected by federal investigators.
“It’s very clear that they’re not going anywhere, that these guys have kind of hunkered down,” Jaylani said of the federal agents at the scene.
Earlier in the evening, the official city of Minneapolis X account reported that city officials are “aware of reports of a shooting involving federal law enforcement,” but no other information was immediately available.
DHS account
According to the DHS statement on X: Federal officers were making a traffic stop with a man they say is not a legal citizen. The man crashed into a parked car, fled on foot and resisted when an officer caught up with him.
The man allegedly struggled with an officer on the ground and assaulted the officer. Two bystanders exited a nearby apartment building and allegedly struck the officer with a shovel and broomstick, according to DHS. That’s when the officer shot the initial target of the traffic stop.
The man and bystanders ran into an apartment and barricaded themselves inside, DHS said.
Good was killed one week ago
Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, was killed on Jan. 7 while monitoring federal immigration activity on Portland Avenue near E. 34th Street. Videos of the shooting show Good in the driver’s seat of an SUV that is parked at an angle in the roadway. She’s confronted by federal agents on foot, and attempts to make a three-point turn when officer Jonathan Ross fires multiple shots, killing her.
Good’s killing sparked continuous days of vigils, protests and marches that have often turned violent, with federal agents spraying chemical irritants in demonstrators’ faces, breaking car windows to detain civilians and making verbal threats against citizen observers.
Sahan Journal reporter Shubhanjana Das contributed to this report.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
